Israel: The double standard

I'm guessing from your blog title that you are 16. And reading your blog took my back quite a long way to when I was 16 and wanted to believe that the world could be simply divided into Jews and antisemites, that everything Israel said or did was good and everything the Palestinians said or did was bad.

I was involved in a zionist youth movement and spent several summers in Israel...until eventually I could not deny what was staring me in the face, that whatever extreme backgound factors were involved, Israel had a state, the palestinians didn't; Israel ruled over large numbers of Palestinians who could not vote to change Israeli policy; Palestinians within Israel were treated as third class citizens (behind Oriental Jews) and that not all Israeli Jews supported government policy.

To my shame, until I was 18 years old, none of the reading I had done on the conflict was written by Palestianians. And when I remedied this, espeically by reading Edward Said's "the Question of Palestine", it was impossible to return to the innocent and unthinkingly pro-zionist view I had held. and I am grateful for this because the day I took a more objective view of the Israel/Palestine conflict, the day I began to question the ideas of Zionism was the day I started truly working for Israeli-Palestinian peace and the day I became aware of many other human rights conflicts internationally and how they might be solved.

Anyway, don't just listen to me, read Said's book and make your own mind up. Find out about young people in Israel not much older than yourself - the shministim and why they are refusing army service. Stand in their shoes and see how things look through their eyes. Good luck on your journey.

Well thank you indeed for the good luck, I hope to enjoy my journey and stand up for what is right. Maybe, and I do not mean to sound in the least bit patronising, you have not read the above article accurately. This is not about defending Israeli actions against Palestinians, which are in many cases inexcusable. However, they (as I have tried to point out in the above) are no more inexcusable and illegal than the actions of Nato countries in Afghanistan, the actions of the genocidal Sudanese government in Darfur or the actions of Mugabe in Zimbabwe. This article just goes to illustrate the double standards that are, evidently present in terms of the isolation and singling out of Israel. It makes no political or ideological sense to ban an elected representative of a western nation on the ground that he could incite racial hatred, whilst within a matter of weeks giving a free pass to members of aterrorist organisation, WHILST boasting a financial supporter of terror in your first house.

Whatever age one may be, it does not for one second mean that you cannot have an understanding of partiliaty. When that partiality cannot be explained through pure politics, which, in the case of GB's attitude toward Israel it cannot (otherwise the same politics would apply to all other nations), you are left with no choice but to question the motives behind certain political/legislative decisions. That does not however go to say that all people are Jews or antisemites and not once did I imply in the above piece, that such a nonsense is in fact a reality.

Zionism is, as you should be aware, about the fight for freedom and self determination. This did not have to come at the expense of ordinary, innocent Palestinians; it was (unfortunately) their leadership that created such a consequence due to their inability to accept the notion of the Jewish right to self-determination. Zionism, a word that is so reveiled and misinterpretated, cannot be blamed for, what was at the time (to be PR), Arab racism against the Jewish areas of what was Palestine.

I think it is also important to note that I fully accept and strongly condone with all my Jewishness illegal Israeli abuses against innocent Palestinians. It is just a shame that such instances seem to take precedence over much greater, near genocidal, conflicts that are occuring all over the world. That my friend is not the fault of Zionism and is not something that enters the mental picture of Edward Said.

I have read his various books, been to see him debate with Alan Dreshowitz, and have read, amongst other things, Michael Neumann's book which argues that (same old) case against Israel.

We cannot all claim to have had an ignorant youth.

I hope your journey offers you many more insights and discoveries.

Salem.

I'm sorry if I assumed you were 16. The style and content of your argument on this blog and previous entries had reinforced that belief but who knows - you may be as old as me. Then again, it's about how young you feel, and if you feel 16, gezunterhayt, enjoy!

Two points: Your comments about what did or didn't enter "the mental picture of Edward Said" seem way off the mark. Of course he focused a lot of energies on the Palestine issue, but argued on a universal human rights basis and the whole weight of argument in his many books and essays was about standing up for human rights and resisting forces of oppression, discrimination and coercion. If you don't believe me - then reread them and consider them afresh.

Secondly the argument about Zionism as "the fight for freedom and self determination" - "the Jewish right to self-determination".

Zionism was one of several political ideas seeking to radically change the position of Jews in the face of antisemitism and vulnerable minority status at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century. The Jews like every people have the absolute right to self-determination but Zionism is only one way of expressing it - and one which unfortunately is maintained through discrimination and privilege over the Palestinians, and whatever political positions are held by which ever Palestinians, that doesn't change that basic fact.

Most Jews in the world seem to be able to satisfy their self-determination, living Jewish lives, having Jewish institutions, practising the Jewish religion either as strictly or with as much laxity as they wish, in the diaspora - without creating any injustices to others and without injustice being done to them. And when they encounter problems, just like other minorities they use democratic channels to respond and try to solve these problems.

The issue of self-determination of the Jews in Israel has been solved to the extent that Israel is a majority Jewish state with laws and practices defending Jewish life and liberty. But without recognising the injustice to the Palestinian people when it was formed and by maintaining laws and practices that privilege Jews over non-Jews in israel that self-determination will continue to be precarious. There is a growing demand among civli libertarians and political thinkers on the left in Israel, both among Jewish and non-Jewish communities there, for israel to truly be a state for all its citizens living in equality. That is what we should be aiming for rather than coming up with tired old arguments to defend the indefensible.

I do grow tired of these arguments. You clearly associate youth with ignorance-based on your own experiences or otherwise this is a clearly hypocritical and contradictory notion, as it evidently imparts your ignorance and (societally speaking) macro opinions as to what youth entails. Once again: We cannot all claim to have had an ignorant youth. Please, lets just try and leave the issue of ignorance aside, it is an unnecessary and unprovoked attack at me, aimed at trying to delegitimise my points off the back of ignorant opinion rather than fact.

You clearly have a strange notion of self-determination. We are not reading out of a textbook and nor should we be. The world is not black and white my friend. The issue of the right to Jewish self-determination, as you should (as a one-time member of the zionist youth) know, is about the right to rule over your own people; about the right to escape the forced routes of the diaspora which lead to the genocidal and racially incited industrial slaughter of six million jews in Europe. The Jewish notion of Self Determination cannot then for one minute, be about 'living Jewish lives, having Jewish institutions, practising the Jewish religion...in the diaspora'. We BOTH know what that lead to 60 years ago in Germany. That's why many of the remaining Jewish refugees gathered together in a stateless part of the Ottoman Empire and vowed 'Never Again'.

Furthermore it is a sad, sad shame that you seem to interpret the notion of zionism as being inevitably, in the words of Michael Neumann, 'discriminative over Palestinians'. This never fails to amuse me. The notion that 100,000 jewish refugees, escaping an unstoppable and genocidal Europe, with no more than the clothes on their back, would be capable of uprooting an entirely settled and supposedly historical population numbering over 750,000 is nonsense . The displacement of the Arab inhabitants of Palestine is NOT the fault of zionism. It is the fault of the Arab leadership in the 1920's and 30's, which, let's not forget, allied itself to Adolf Hitler and presented Nazi Germany with thousands upon thousands of Arab legions to help with the extermination of the Jewish people. Had THAT nazi-inspired leadership accepted the same partition plan, as the Zionist Leaders fundementally did agree with the Palestinian right to over 80% of Palestine (the areas in which they were a majority), then there would be no conflict, there would be no displacement and there would be an Israel which, in your own sweet words, would be a state 'for all its citizens living in equality'.

Maybe you should try and come up with new arguments to try and argue against the inarguable.